A Widow's Poison, A Wife's Rebellion novel Chapter 805

Tanya's willpower was ironclad.

After suffering the absolute humiliation Darian's mother had put her through, nothing he said was going to easily sway her.

Seeing her wall up like this made Darian desperate.

"Why do you keep bringing up Fairfax and Starla? I am not him! If you hate my family, fine—we just won't go see them."

In his mind, the solution was glaringly obvious. If she couldn't get along with them, they would just keep their distance.

He was looking at the situation with reckless optimism.

Tanya let out a soft, defeated sigh.

Look at him... men always thought these deeply entrenched social issues could be solved with a band-aid.

"Fairfax moved Starla out to Petal Villa, didn't he?"

Distance? Anyone could put physical distance between themselves and their in-laws.

Fairfax had the exact same brilliant idea back then.

And what did it accomplish? If an old-money family wanted to destroy you, they had a thousand ways to do it without ever stepping foot in your house.

In the beginning, sure, Fairfax had fiercely protected Starla. He kept the wolves at bay.

But as the days turned into months, and the months into years...?

Eventually, the constant warfare wore him down. He lost his patience. And the second he stopped standing as her shield, Starla took the full, brutal brunt of their cruelty alone.

Fairfax had probably hoped Starla would eventually figure out how to navigate the family politics on her own.

He never realized that some grudges were fundamentally unfixable.

Tanya had watched the entire tragic cycle unfold firsthand. Through Starla, she had seen exactly what happened to women who married into hostile high-society families.

She refused to walk down that road.

Darian's arm tightened possessively around her waist.

"Darian, you're being incredibly naive," she whispered.

"Every single 'solution' you're offering right now is something Fairfax already tried. You know how that story ended."

"Damn it, Tanya, are you part wolf?!" It actually really hurt.

She was so livid that she had clamped down with everything she had.

At first, Darian looked like he was going to pull away, but then he simply gritted his teeth and took it.

When she finally stopped, he brought a hand up to stroke the back of her head, his touch gentle and soothing. "Alright. Are you done?"

"I know you've been put through hell. I should have believed you from the start."

His initial disbelief had purely stemmed from the fact that his mother had never done something so wildly gauche before.

Handing someone a hundred-dollar bill? It was so beneath a woman of her social standing.

But looking back, if her sole intention was to completely and utterly degrade Tanya, it made horrific sense.

Tanya finally released him.

"Don't worry," Darian whispered into her hair. "I'm going to fix this. All of it. Just trust me, okay?"